The present invention relates to aircrafts, and more particularly to a braking system of an aircraft, as well as a method of detecting a failure of a brake actuator of the aircraft.
Braking systems are employed in a wide range of vehicles and industrial applications. In many cases, a braking system includes an actuator that acts upon a braking element. The actuator may be mechanical, electrical, hydraulic or a combination thereof. In the case of an electrical or electro-mechanical actuator, a motor may be employed to drive the actuator. The motor drives the actuator with a gear assembly that provides a gear reduction and converts rotational motion to translational motion of a linear driving element used to displace the braking element. Failure of one or more of the above components lead to inefficient and ineffective braking and detection of such a failure is desirable. Several detection methods have been attempted, but typically include time-consuming manual inspection of the braking system components.